Cities and homosexual subjectivities: crossing markers of difference in bars in the peripheries of the cities São Paulo and Belém, Brazil

Author(s)

Ramon Pereira dos Reis

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2016-12-13

Examining board members

Julio Assis Simoes; Regina Facchini; Heitor Frúgoli Junior; Roberto Marques; Silvana de Souza Nascimento

• Advisor: Julio Assis Simoes

Abstract

This is an anthropological research on socio-spatial agency, disputes and segregations between men who self-identify themselves as gays or homosexuals in periphery contexts of the cities São Paulo and Belém, Brazil. We aim to examine the social production process of the differences between these men, who are frequenters of bars with expressive homosexual sociability, located in peripheral regions of the east side of São Paulo and in a periphery neighborhood of Belém: the Guingas Bar (in São Mateus), the Plasticine Party, held every two weeks in the Luar Rock Bar (in Itaquera), and the bar Refúgio dos Anjos (in Guamá), respectively. The analytical key that led us to the theme and spaces mentioned came from the problematic, still little explored in Brazilian urban anthropology, between periphery and homosexuality, or rather, between urban studies and the gender and sexuality studies. We understand that from the 2000s the articulation of these fields of knowledge gained ground in the national scenario based on anthropological research on homosexual sociability, but part of these efforts were concentrated in the central regions of Brazilian cities. Rather than recognizing regional and geographical distinctions, we seek to sift through city narratives that blur the downtown-periphery binomial. In order to do this, we take as one of the argumentative vectors the mobility, as allusion and/or practice, but above all as empowerment, articulating it with social markers of gender, sexuality, social class, race/color and territoriality, as a way of observing the management of the interlocutors in the urban space. Our project proposes to contribute to urban studies and the gender and sexuality studies, either to talk about peripheries and homosexuality, cities, the production of difference and homosexual sociabilities, or to show that the urban transformations of each urban context, related to the history of bars and what we call movement-actions, are key pieces for the understanding of terms such as resistance, family, community, friendship, signaling, this time, that such composites extrapolate the synonyms of absence and precariousness, at the same time that established relationships are not enough for the way of leisure and fun. Therefore, throughout the thesis we perceive that such contexts are in constant negotiations and disputes directly questioned by the ways in which the cities are accessed and desired. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 12/11721-8 - On bodies and styles: crossing markers of difference in spaces of homosexual sociability in the outskirts of São Paulo and Belém
• Grantee: Ramon Pereira dos Reis
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate